We were somewhere around our second bottle of wine when I made the startling realization that Amy’s unexpected British accent had faded into something more typical and American. Picking her up that night for drinks at The Reptile Zoo, I told her I wasn’t expecting a British accent. She asked what I was expecting, and I didn’t have a good answer. You exchange a few messages with a girl on OKCupid and agree to meet for drinks- what is there to expect?

You’re there because your perceived value matched her barest threshold- stripped to its core through years of careful revision; weathering her expectations down to the essentials that she would have scoffed at as a younger woman- grade-D, but edible, meat- but edible, the part you’d like to emphasize.

She’s there because she wrote back. 

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